The Rook Squad In: The Mushroom Stamp
by WTFDrayGoon
Summary: An injured woman with an almost completely cybernetic body is found and taken in by superheroes. Their pyrokinetic commander, Rook, believes she can save the Rook Squad from a deadly disease. But the team faces powerful enemies as well as former friends.
1. Chapter 1

_March 28__th__, 2008 _

_7:41 PM_

**Giygax Project #9847 Darkling Series [Version 1.1.6]**

**© Copyright 2007-2008 Giygax Corp.**

**C:\Unit8\System\OpsCheck**

**Running System Ops Check…**

**Warning: Critical damage to drive unit detected.**

**Warning: Critical damage to ROM detected. Stored memory inaccessible.**

**Warning: Critical damage to power supply detected.**

**C:\Unit8\System\Startup**

**Unit8 is starting up…**

**Warning: Startup failed. Critical damage to power supply.**

**C:\Unit8\System\EmergencyStartup**

**Identifying damaged power routes…**

**Identifying intact pathways…**

**Rerouting…**

**Power successfully rerouted. Emergency Startup Complete.**

_7:45 PM_

She awoke with a gasp. That first breath seared her lungs, as if someone had poured molten glass through her nostrils, down her throat and into her chest. That acrid sting only made her more aware of the screaming pain in her abdomen and back. She took a second, deeper breath, which only hurt worse than the first as more of the stinking, burning air filled her chest cavity. As she forced herself to regulate her breathing, she began to calm down, and her awareness of her surroundings grew. She was lying flat on her stomach, and the ground beneath her was composed of firm dirt. The air was hot, gritty, and putrid to smell and taste. Her back was crooked because an object was wedged beneath her left hip, propping it off the ground. Below her hips, she could feel nothing.

She cried out at that realization. Her legs were mere dead weight. Mustering up all the energy she could, she pushed off the ground with her arms and rolled herself over onto her back. The pressure of the object she had been lying on did not subside when se rolled away—it felt as if it came up with her, stuck to her. Screwing up her face against the pain ramming up her spine and into the base of her skull like a superheated railroad spike, she forced her eyes open—and quickly snapped them back shut against the fierce heat and grit that slashed at her eyeballs. It was no loss that she could not open her eyes, she thought, as she could not see anything when she did anyway. Nothing but the black smoke that she drew into her system with every breath.

A constant hissing and crackling nearby told her that something was on fire. Fully alert and gaining back a bit of strength, she dragged herself away from the spot she had awoken at. Using a hand to shield her face, she tried opening her eyes again, eager to make sure that she wasn't heading any _closer_ to the flames.

She could see about two feet around her in every direction, but everything beyond that was concealed by a thick swath of black ash. Twisted scraps of metal with wicked sharp edges were strewn on the ground in front of her.

One of these was solidly embedded in the left side of her stomach.

"What the fuck…" she heard herself moan in disbelief. Hands shaking from the sight of the metal shard coming out of her, she took as strong a grip as she could on it, and pulled. It took some effort, but she was able to work the blade free. She felt an unpleasant shudder as it came loose from the base of her spine—_so, it had been this piece of shrapnel that had impaled and paralyzed her—_and with disgust she threw it to the dirt, away from herself. She gripped her wounded abdomen with her left hand as she supported herself on her right arm, listening carefully for any signs of the fire or any approaching help. That was when her eyes trailed across her own left arm.

There, tattooed lengthwise along the inner side of her forearm, was a single word.

**_DARKLING8_**

But what the word meant to her, she didn't know or care. Her attention was focused elsewhere—a rip in the flesh of her arm had missed the word by half an inch, and from her arm trailed broken wires. Crimson hydraulic fluid spilled from every wound, the same color and consistency as blood.

_ Well, shit,_ she thought, _that's why I don't have my strength._ She was weakening every minute that the pressurized fluid leaked out of her body. She had to patch herself up, and quickly, before she became completely paralyzed. Just then, her ears registered a new sound--one her hard-coded recognition software told her was traffic. There was a road nearby. Without wasting another moment, she rolled back onto her stomach and set off at a crawl.


	2. Chapter 2

_8:21 PM_

"Can you see the crash site yet?" the commander's voice sounded, curt and irritable, in the pilot's headset. Behind her black goggles, she grinned widely.

"There's only a giant fucking plume of black smoke coming up from it. I'll be over it in T-minus one minute."

Her modified Comanche helicopter, stripped of weapons to maximize its stealth and speed, swept low over the thick evergreen forest. The woods stretched as far beyond and behind her as she could see, and on her right loomed an imposing stretch of the Appalachian Mountains. Some of the higher peaks were still capped with snow.

The aerial view of the forest and the mountains would have been exceedingly lovely, if not for the pillar of smoke just ahead of her. Some of the trees around the crash site were ablaze, and their green foliage only added to the already rapidly swelling black cloud.

"Ok, I'm there," the pilot said, her smile fading as she brought her chopper directly over the site. The breeze carried the smoke at an angle to the east, away from the mountainside. "I'll buzz you again when I'm finished with my scan, Commander, so just sit tight. HrlyQnn out."

She gave her boss a few seconds to reply, but hearing nothing, she set about her work. Bringing the Comanche to a hover, she eased it lower and lower until she was no more than twenty feet above the tops of the trees. Her fingers darted across the instrument panels with an assured quickness that would have made the most seasoned Army pilot green in the face. At her command a panel slid open in the belly of the chopper, and a conical arm extended straight down, fanning out at the end to reveal a polished lens.

Hrly sat back in her seat to look up at the array of small monitors embedded in the aircraft's ceiling. The little eye below the chopper fed into all of these. One showed her a thermal view of the crash site, one would alert her to any unusual motion, a third filtered out the background noise to pick up only sound patterns that matched human voices, and another could pick up the faint electromagnetic pulse of a heartbeat. These and several other monitors were Hrly's way of ensuring that if there were any living people beneath all that smoke, she would be able to detect them.

She peered intently at the thermal monitor. Normally this would have been useless trying to detect a person's heat signature amongst all that fire, but she was looking for anything especially cold. She found nothing of the sort. She had arrived too late for anything in the area to still be cool enough to show up on that screen. The motion sensors provided nothing other than the steady swirling of the thickening smoke. No hint of any human voices crying for help.

"Fuck." She reached to flip the switch that would retract the sensor arm, but halted. On a sudden notion, she instead moved to command the arm to start emitting X-rays. She turned off all the monitors but one to limit the sensor arm to that one task and so enhance the quality of the signal.

It made her wonder why she didn't think to do that in the first place. Right below her, plowed halfway into the ground and completely torn open, was the demolished skeleton of a massive cargo aircraft. Scattered about were shredded pieces of its hull and frame, ample evidence that the plane had slid quite a distance before coming to a halt.

Among the wreckage, Hrly quickly noticed the several human-shaped metal frames lying on the ground. Some were still inside the craft, others thrown out. None were intact—all of them were rent asunder by the impact.

She had expected this, but the sight still turned her stomach. She lifted a clammy, shaking finger to her headset.

"Commander Rook, I've… I've scanned the crash site. They're here. I had to find them on X-ray because I wasn't picking up any heart rates, sound, or movement. They're all dead, sir."

A sigh on the other end. After a few seconds, she heard his Hispanic-accented voice yelling _FUCK,_ far off as if he had moved away from his microphone. There was a small crash. After another short pause, he spoke to her again. "All ten are accounted for?"

"Eleven, don't you mean? Shouldn't there be a flesh-and-blood person in this mess somewhere too?"

"No, there's no pilot, if that's what you're asking. It was an unmanned craft, a free gift Giygax Corp was throwing in along with the ten models. Have you counted ten yet, HrlyQnn?"

"Hang on." She was relieved indeed to know there was no pilot, but it didn't make the scene below her and on the screen any less disturbing. "There are… body parts all over the place. None of them are in one piece."

The superior officer hesitated. "… The heads, then. Just look for ten heads."

Hrly cringed, but nodded. That was the best way to make sure. "Yes, sir." Flipping the goggles off her pretty face, she leaned close to the small image. It was very sharp, and penetrated easily through the wood and dirt and smoke, so she could very well make out several heads. She counted.

"Nine, sir."

"What?" He sounded distracted. She could faintly make out other voices—several people were talking to him at once. "You said only nine?"

"Yes. One's missing."

"Thank you, Hrly. I'm going to call Giygax and make sure they definitely shipped ten."

"With what you just went through, I suggest you take it easy and have someone else do it," Hrly replied. One of her commanding officer's oldest and most trusted friends, she did not consider it unprofessional at all to offer him stern advice. Again, she got no reply, a response she was well used to, and simply went back to her business. Retracting the sensor arm, she allowed the Comanche to gain altitude, and veered away from the wreckage. That was when she noticed the single road, a narrow black strip among the greys and browns of the forest floor, occasionally visible through the trees. Even as she watched a car passed directly beneath her, slowing down to rubberneck at the black smoke continuing to billow into the sky.

"Commander," she said sharply, to ensure she had his attention. "I found a road less than a hundred yards from the site. It's paved, so it's likely well used. I suggest a ground search of the forest and any and all nearby towns in both directions from this road."

"That'll take months," Commander Rook growled. "But you're right. If there's a chance that there's even one surviving Darkling unit, we have to take every measure to track it down. We're not going to survive this without it."

Hrly gritted her teeth. About that, he was absolutely right.

"One more thing, Hrly."

"Sir?"

"Doubtless the authorities are rushing to the scene by now. Farceur and I have been delaying them as long as we could, but the news crews want answers and the park rangers are adamant that firefighters get out there this instant to control the damage. Does it look like they might come across anything we don't want them finding?"

The pilot grimaced. She could think of several governments that would be pissed off to find out about the Darkling Project and its intent. "Yes, pieces of the machines are scattered all over the place. I'm not sure what condition they're in after being in the fire this long, but I guess we can't chance it. What would you have me do?"

"Well, if you could…"

Hrly did not hear the rest of what Commander Rook said over a sudden, horrifyingly loud hiss that cut through the racket of her Comanche's rotors. She whipped around to look down through the canopy at the crash site.

An upward rush of pressurized air battered at the smoke, giving her a full, clear view of the entire scene for a brief second. Her eyes locked on the ruined plane. The flames had reached the frame, lunging across a puddle of spilled fuel—that was the hiss she had heard. From a crack in the large fuel tank came the rush of superheated air, along with spouts of flame that resembled the fire from a welding torch.

"_SHIT!_" she screamed, yanking the stick as hard as she could to her left. The chopper tilted and banked to that side.

A great roar like a thunderclap shrieked up at her from below, and she was buffeted with a blast of rising air. It threw the helicopter another several feet up, bucking her out of her seat and throwing her against the panel. It also saved her life.

Gripping the stick with one arm and her throbbing head with the other, she never saw the fireball that rose up beneath her, a roiling cloud of red flame and black ash that reached up like the jaws of Hell to swallow the Comanche. Had it not been for the preceding burst of superheated air that had thrown the craft several yards upward, it would have been engulfed completely.

Only when she regained control of the Comanche, and sat back in her seat, did Hrly turn again to look behind her. The fire from the explosion had faded, and all she saw was falling debris. But she knew that she'd just had a very close call.

Wiping blood from her forehead, Hrly shook off the pain, vaguely becoming aware of a voice in her ears. In her dizzy state the voice sounded far-off, yet loud, and the words ran together.

"…_HrlyQnn you better answer me right the fuck now what's going on what the hell was that noise are you alright Jesus God Almighty what was that noise HrlyQnn talk to me are you alive goddammit say something for fuck's sake"_

"I'm here, I'm alright, just got a little stunned, that's all."

Rook's voice was hoarse from yelling. "Thank Jesus…"

"The fuel tank in the cargo plane went off and I was a bit closer than I should have been. But I think that solves our problem, Commander. I don't think we need to worry about anyone recovering anything recognizable, after what I just saw."

"Right… fine. Return to base. Shit, you gave me a scare."

"Sorry." Smiling to herself, she donned her goggles and aimed the Comanche northeast. Below her she could see occasional flashes of blue, red, and yellow. The cops and firefighters were just now arriving, a full forty-five minutes after the initial crash. Well, at least their response time was improving.


	3. Chapter 3

_March 29__th__, 2008_

_2:15 AM_

It was into the wee hours of the next morning when HrlyQnn began to see her destination. Before her, isolated from the populated Washington, D.C. area yet still close enough for easy access, was the Rook Squad base.

A tall chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire, encircled fifty acres of concrete, scattered with floodlights, runways, small pillboxes, shooting ranges and vehicle housings. In the very center sat the massive, multilevel fortress, all blast-proof steel and one-way glass. Its defining feature was a tower that rose from the center, a spire that formed the heart of the Rook Squad's internet and communications relay. This tower sat right on top of the best-protected chamber in the entire base, the area referred to by the team as the "war room" in which they met for mission briefings. The war room also held the laboratory as well as all computers and record files. All other sections of the fortress connected directly to this core structure.

At the south end was the hangar, a wide, low box with a row of massive sliding doors across the face. Emblazoned on its roof was a helipad, well-lit and equipped with a windsock.

The barracks enveloped the east and north side of the base. While it did not have a heavy security system or encryption systems to deal with infiltration attacks like the war room, it boasted the thickest walls in the base. Each agent had his or her own private, if cramped, room. On its bottom floor was the mess hall where they congregated for meals, provided by the taxpayers of the United States of America.

The west side was devoted to the gymnasium. A multilevel training complex, developed by the finest team of minds the government could bring together, made use of an artificially aware mainframe to examine new agents and determine how best to challenge them to hone their abilities. It spoke in a pleasant, English-accented female voice, but the indifference with which it threw death-defying challenges at new agents was unnerving. Commander Rook had named this program MEH for its blasé manner.

The base was still very much awake and active when HrlyQnn made her approach. Several beacons swiveled to face her aircraft, and panels lit up in front of her to let her know she was undergoing a security scan. Her identity instantly verified, she was allowed to proceed.

She had herself designed the unmanned drones that would have been dispatched to confront her if her craft had not carried the right tag or behaved in a hostile manner.

When she landed on the roof of the hangar, the steel door was already opening, and a group of agents were emerging into the floodlit area to greet her. She couldn't help but smile as she shut the Comanche down and disengaged the cockpit.

HrlyQnn was one of a very small number of agents that held the rank of "Class I," meaning that her innate gifts were deadly, in need of serious training in order to control, or otherwise very extreme—in her case, her ability to expertly pilot any air, land, or sea vehicle within moments of feeling out its controls. The other members standing on the helipad, all six of them, constituted the entirety of her fellow Class I agents.

53V3N was the first to the chopper, with a big smile even at this ungodly hour. Tall, dark, and extremely handsome, "V3N" was a master of disguises. He could render himself invisible to the naked eye using only what lay at hand, or clever use of shadows. Because of this ability, he had received countless hours of training as a field agent and as an assassin, trying to move without sound as well as without visibility, and he could kill with his bare hands.

As he came near, Hrly nodded to him, but his eyes drifted down.

"The fuck are you looking at?"

"That was some explosion. I was wondering if I'd find a pee stain."

She shoved him, laughing as she jumped out onto the pad.

Next to greet her was Jude. A strikingly beautiful young woman, none were surprised to learn she possessed the power of male manipulation, but it went further than most thought. At will, she could exude a pheromone from her pores that would overcome the logical mind of any sexually mature man within range, literally bending them to her will. She could convince a man that he could win a night with her by jumping off a cliff. No male was able to resist this scent—save for one.

Hrly next greeted Unspun. Pallid-skinned, dark-haired and decorated with piercings, she looked less than comfortable in the harsh glow of the floodlight. When she smiled at Hrly, her lips revealed elongated, sharp teeth. A vampiress from birth, she'd found that some of the mythos applied but certainly not all of it. She was not at ease in the light, but direct sunlight did not kill her. She certainly did despise garlic, but holy water and crosses had no adverse effect. As for the stake through the heart, she wasn't too keen on trying that out.

Farceur nodded politely to her as she passed. Although he seemed technically not to have any superhero-level gifts, he had been blessed with what he called "a way with words." He could break down anyone's resolve with his speech, using a combination of appeal to emotion, diplomacy, persuasion, and intimidation. He had initially simply talked his way into Class I status, but it was later decided he deserved it when it was realized he could send nations to war at his whim. To supplement his odd gift, he was extremely well-read, having versed himself in a wide variety of philosophical and political literature to give credence to his arguments. An unnatural memory allowed him to quote from the veritable library stored in his head, citing passage, title, author, and page number at will. Not a field agent or a participant in combat by any means, he was the Rook Squad's ambassador, holding his own seat in Congress as well as the United Nations. There was talk of him moving up to the Cabinet.

Kich was quick and enthusiastic to greet Hrly. He moved about encased in a protective hazmat suit—which was designed to keep chemicals in, not out. Kich, it was discovered, was unable to survive for very long in the Earth's atmosphere, instead needing to live on his own self-contained recycled gases. This made for an extremely toxic environment inside the suit, and whenever he chose to vent these gases, the consequences were deadly for his intended victim. The suit was bulletproof and fitted with hydraulic pumps inside the joints to enhance his strength and quadruple his weight, making him into something of a juggernaut.

Finally, Hrly smiled at AdrenaLyn. This agent had the ability to alter her physical form into any person or animal that she had previously touched. For some reason, her genetic code had never quite become stable during her conception, giving her the ability to absorb the DNA sequences of other creatures upon contact and transform her helixes to match theirs. Because she did this at will, and to the degree she wished, she could assume the full form of an animal while retaining her rational mind, or only imitate the voice of a person, or only grow a set of claws out of her fingers.

"Where are Dray and the boss?" Hrly asked her.

"In the war room, waiting to get chewed out."

"Waiting this long?"

"Well, the Council has been tied up trying to get the civilian authorities sorted out. People are royally pissed off on all sides."

Hrly grimaced. "Well, let's get down there."

_2:28 AM_

The tension was thick in the war room. All of the rows and rows of chairs in the theater-style chamber were empty, and two lone figures sat at the row of computers that stretched along the front wall. Above the computers, the wall was dominated by a giant, flat screen, which depicted another, darker chamber. There, several figures sat in luxurious chairs, each turned away from the central polished table, engaged in their own business. The Class I agents knew this scenario very, very well. Their bosses were on hold.

The two at the computers turned slowly, miserably, at the sound of the automatic door. The shorter of the two stood. This was Draygoon, the head of security at the Rook Squad and Rook's second-in-command. Face concealed by a black ballcap on his head backwards, black shades, and a goatee, he never seemed to smile or reveal any emotion at all, though he always knew all of their thoughts at once. This was his power. He could project his own brainwaves into the head of any person he wished, allowing him to read anyone's thoughts, or direct them. His power overrode Farceur's and Jude's in that it used brute hijacking rather than suggestion or bribery like theirs for manipulation, leaving him immune to their gifts and able to seize others away from their control.

Draygoon approached the other Class I agents. "Hrly, it's good to see you back safely. We're just waiting for the Council to get back to us. They didn't specifically say the conversation has to be private… y'all feel free to have a seat or go to bed, whatever you want. I made coffee." He motioned to the line of chairs at the many computers along the wall.

They all elected to stay for the talk. Hrly took the chair on the other side of her commander, and he swiveled around to look at her. He looked exhausted.

But he looked no less powerful than he normally did. Rook was very tall, with an extremely toned and athletic body. Bright-eyed and handsome, his Cuban features gave him a charm few women were ever able to resist. Years of football had conditioned him into a physical powerhouse, and his fierce manner and quick temper demanded respect from all. But he was young, and had not been commander for very long. Others in positions of authority regarded him as a "greenhorn" and an "upstart," and he carried a chip on his shoulder for that. "Hothead" was probably the best word to describe him, and in more ways than one.

Commander Rook could secrete an extraordinary chemical from his hands that reacted explosively on contact with the nitrogen/oxygen mix in the atmosphere. This chemical was produced constantly by his metabolism, and at a fixed rate, so while he could keep a small flame going on one of his fingertips nearly indefinitely, he could only cast flamethrower-like waves for a short time, and if he wanted to hurl a few meteor-style blasts he would have to wait for several minutes for his body to produce more of the compound.

"Anything new?" HrlyQnn asked him.

"This has been what we've been getting from them for the past couple hours," Rook said, motioning at the large screen.

The Council of Moderators were the only authority that Commander Rook himself answered to, and were the source of the Rook Squad's government funding. A federal committee themselves, the Council were composed of several people with decidedly superior abilities and intelligence.

Nearest to them, chair turned completely away from the long table, was Gehtfuct, the handsome communications expert. Since birth he had possessed a unique undertone to his voice that stimulated the humor center of the human brain, allowing him to command the attention of others when he spoke, regardless of what he had to say was actually worth listening to or not. Together with his assistant, the infinitely patient and even-tempered HoneyImHome, the two of them formed the liaison between the Council and the general populace of the nation. Gehtfuct was speaking quickly and harshly into a headset, but no audio from the Council's chamber came into the war room.

Across from Gehtfuct, engaged in sorting out the damage control, was the studious BrIONwoshMunky. With his acute control over the motion of fluids, he had found himself in charge of the municipal water distributors for several surrounding districts, and so he had a hand in the issue of how to control the fires caused by the explosion in the forest. He, too, was on the phone, and not in a good mood.

Dustinzgirl sat in complete silence, looking at Rook, a slight half-grin crossing her face. She leaned back in her chair—reinforced, because of her ability. She could increase the density of her own body at will, making her completely invulnerable to physical damage as well as orders of magnitude stronger and heavier—but it took much of her stamina to sustain herself in this form, so she couldn't hold it for long. And it tended to happen involuntarily when she was irritated.

Across from her sat HavokChylde, nearly invisible in his black uniform against the backdrop of the darkened chamber. This ninja was second to none in unarmed and melee-weapon combat, stealth, assassination, and infiltration. Only 53V3N came close to rivaling his skill. Havok's many blades were laid out on the table in front of him—an assortment of long and short swords, daggers, throwing stars, and darts. He held a particularly wicked, straight blade in his hand and was deeply engaged in sharpening it to a keen razor edge.

Jane Deere, too, looked as though she were preparing for some course of action. Her extraordinarily beautiful face was crossed with an austere look as she pulled her hair back and laced up her shoes. Her outfit was streamlined to make her as aerodynamic as possible—and when one's gift was the ability to run at speeds faster than the human eye could track, that was only logical.

MaxPower was on the phone with the president of Giygax Corporation. Rook and the company had already confirmed that they had shipped ten Darkling Units—MaxPower was discussing how they would cover this issue with the media. MaxPower was hailed as quite a PR and intelligence expert, but his real respect had been gained in war. A towering, heavily muscled, grizzled, and battle-scarred veteran, MaxPower had the dangerous and unstable ability to produce and project kinetic energy directly from his body into any target he wished, usually in the form of shattering earthquakes to topple enemy vehicles or massive concussive-force blasts at aircraft or groups of enemies.

A static crackle got the attention of every Class I agent in the war room, and all heads turned to the screen. Audio contact had been established. Gehtfuct, BrION and Max had finished their conversations and hung up, and all of the Council's eyes were on the Rook Squad now.

At the head of the table, previously completely cast in shadow, the leader of the Council of Moderators leaned into full view. Sharp-tongued, curt, and foul-tempered, his two mewling pets Zolly and Chokies in his lap, BRiT glared at the Rook Squad from across the table. After a few seconds he sighed and his head sank into one hand, as if he'd suddenly had a dull headache.

"How…" he started, his other hand scratching behind Zolly's ear. "How do two such experienced, such powerful, such high ranking agents fuck up so badly? Rook and Draygoon, really. I'm all ears."


	4. Chapter 4

The two top agents exchanged a look. Draygoon opened his mouth, paused, then decided against speaking. Rook, however, clasped his hands and placed them on the desk in front of him. He sat up straighter, and cleared his throat.

"Fuck up?"

An acrid smell, like the ash from a candle, began to emanate from Rook's clenched hands.

_Ah, shit,_ HrlyQnn fumed. _Here it comes._

"Fuck up?" Rook raised an eyebrow. "The person who fucked up, sir, was the one who gave us bogus information."

A loud cough turned all heads. MaxPower leaned forward, incredulous at the accusation. _"What?"_

Rook stood. "I said we were given an inaccurate intelligence briefing. Three of us went out to secure the plane, and only two came back. I'm not going to sit here and let you berate me for doing my job, because I have funeral arrangements to make."

_"Sit down, Rook!!" _BRiT roared, loud enough to make his cats scamper. A sudden burst of static rang through the war room, and the screen went completely black for several seconds. Rook sat. When the screen flickered back to life, BRiT was leaning back in his chair, having regained his composure. "I have warned you about speaking out of line, Commander Rook. I understand your agitation, but I will not tolerate disrespect."

"There have been no respectful words from you to me so far, Councilman."

BRiT paused, biting his lip. "Commander… the fact is that you, Draygoon and Gea should have been more than enough to prevent two attackers from endangering that plane. Regardless of the completeness of Councilman MaxPower's briefing of the situation, three reasonably competent Class I agents should have been able to deal with it."

"The flaw in the information given to us was that there were actually three attackers."

Rook had to suppress a grin at the "oh-shit" look on MaxPower's face as the Council stirred. BRiT's eyes narrowed.

"We gathered that Public Enemies #1 and 7, Phrosty and Stardust, had attacked the plane."

Rook's lips were still pressed tightly together, so Draygoon spoke at last. "They did. But they had some new guy with them. A young punk, they called him 'Killer Bean' or some shit. I only got a brief look at him, but Jesus, he would not die. He had some sort of accelerated healing factor to him. His ability, plus the fact that he was even there to begin with, caught us off guard. Everything went to hell after we lost Gea."

Rook scowled. "If we'd known about him beforehand I would have brought at least six to ten of my best agents."

BrIONwoshMunky nodded. "Killerbean. Just another little shitbag who thinks he's God because he was born with a mutagen. We have him on file but he's one of the many who's never signed up for the Rook Squad."

"Phrosty probably had no trouble talking him into joining up with him. We need to find him, and fast. He's gaining more allies every day," Gehtfuct mumbled, more to himself than the room.

Draygoon slouched. "I didn't even think to interrogate Stardust."

"You have her in your custody, I understand?" said MaxPower.

"Yes."

"Do it now."

"I will," said Farceur, stopping Draygoon from standing with a hand on his shoulder. "You've had a hard enough day. I've at least gotten a few hours of sleep." Draygoon nodded. Farceur strode between the rows of chairs towards the exit door, which hissed open to allow him through.

BRiT locked eyes with Rook. "You will be pleased to know that we have decided to back you in any means necessary on the search for the missing Darkling unit. As it appears you are in need of assistance in field combat, I will be sending HavokChylde to offer counsel and extra firepower."

"I appreciate the gesture and you know as well as I do that we would all be overjoyed to have HavokChylde as an operating field agent again," said Rook, "but we don't _need_…"

"—Furthermore, to aid in the search," BRiT continued at a louder volume, cutting Rook off, "Jane Deere will be arriving with him. I trust she will be a boon in covering ground quickly. Find that Darkling unit, Commander."

Rook sighed. "We will, Councilman. Anything else?"

"Find out as much as you can about Killerbean from Stardust, of course, and we will do the same from what sources we have on our end. That will be all."

Rook nodded, and moved to hang up the call.

BRiT's voice halted him again. "Commander."

"Yes, sir?"

"Inform us when the date of Gea's memorial service has been set."

"Yes, sir."

The line went dead on the Council's end. Rook shut off the large screen and sat back heavily. He rubbed his aching head.

"What now?" 53V3N piped up.

"I'm going the hell to bed, that's what," said Rook. "The search starts first thing in the morning. And someone get the Twos and Threes up early to straighten up the gym for when the Mods show up."

Nods all around. The group of them were just heading for the door to the barracks when the emergency PA in the wall by the giant flat-screen crackled to life.

"CONTAINMENT FAILURE!" Farceur's voice snapped from the speaker. _"REPEAT, CONTAINMENT FAILURE!! SOMEBODY GET DOWN HERE RIGHT THE FUCK—_"

A crash, and then silence.


	5. Chapter 5

_2:36 AM_

"Sir Farceur, Class I," the diplomat spoke into a blinking panel on the wall before him. As the security system recognized the pitch and pattern of his speech, the door to the basement steps unlocked and slid open. Farceur descended into the subterranean detention block.

Long and narrow, it consisted of a hallway with five reinforced prison cells on each side. They were widely spaced along the hall, and each about half the size of an agent's quarters. On the walls between each cell were two-way radios that linked directly to the war room and the Class I barracks. Being among the top agents had some perks, but one of the drawbacks was being on call for any emergency, day or night.

As Farceur reached the first two cells, he cast a glance to his left. The cell there contained no visible occupants. He then quickly looked to his right, expecting to see the short, attractive but pernicious form of Stardust inside. She was nowhere to be seen. He peered closely into the small polycarbonate window, putting a hand on the door as he did so—and it rattled in its frame. The cell door was open.

He stepped back, a lump leaping from his stomach into his throat and a surge of nervous adrenaline rushing from his heart out to his limbs. But even in his state of near panic, his brain didn't stop working.

It was impossible to open the door to the basement from either side without authorization. So she was still in here. And a quick look at the door in front of him told him that it was indeed cracked open a hair—he mentally slapped himself for missing that in his tired, complacent state—while the rest were sealed firmly. And she should not have been able to open any of those doors on her own anyway.

Most likely, she was still inside her cell, and trying to bait him in.

Farceur was no close-quarters-combat expert on the level of Rook, Draygoon, V3N or Hrly, but he had been certified in FBI techniques of apprehension and force continuum, and the emergency two-way was within arm's reach. He was quite confident as he pulled the cell door open and strode inside. He would not be intimidated by a prisoner.

"Come out, Stardust. You cannot possibly think that you could surprise me or attempt escape here. There's nothing you could arm yourself with in these cells to take me hostage with, so you'd never even open the security doors. And even if you did, you'd have to evade the entire Rook Squad to get out of this building. I'm not even going to mention what the perimeter drones would do to you even if you miraculously managed that. Honestly, Stardust, what are you thinking?"

"_Call for help,"_ rasped a tiny voice from behind him. He whirled around in time to see a minute figure squeezing out of a gap in the inner side of the cell door, a hole too small for even the slenderest finger. The tiny keyholes allowed for the manual release of prisoners in the event of power outage.

The tiny person hit the floor and immediately started to expand. It grew rapidly to its normal height of five-nothing.

Farceur tensed, ready to rush Stardust. He was now inside the cell with her between him and the door.

She unfolded her wide, fairy-like wings to fill the whole doorway, and the motion made her shiny green dress glimmer in the industrial lighting. Beneath her soft flop of orange hair, she sneered at him. "Call to them."

Unfazed, Farceur started forward, with the intent to seize her and place her in a pain-compliance hold before she had the chance to grow any more. But he was a pace too slow.

Stardust continued to grow as she met Farceur's advance. Technically there wasn't a limit to her control over her size, but as she went above seven feet tall, gravity and decreasing blood pressure began to undo the strength gains provided by the extra weight and muscle mass. As she went smaller she had the opposite problem, as well as decreased brain function as the grey matter experienced pressure in her shrinking skull.

Easily becoming bigger and stronger than Farceur during the two steps he took to reach her, she struck him in the chest and hurled him against the rear wall of the cell. The back of his head rapped the drywall, sending starbursts of color across his vision.

Reaching her optimum size, Stardust shrieked and charged bodily at Farceur as he lay sprawled on the floor. He barely managed to save himself from the brunt of the blow by seizing the mattress off the cot beside him and yanking it between them like a shield.

Enraged, Stardust lifted the mattress and threw it to one side. Farceur had planned on this, and his tight grip on the cover ensured that he went with it. By the time she realized he wasn't there, he was tumbling on the floor behind her. She spun, and he shoved the cell's small endtable into her path—an instinctive measure and a rather fruitless one, he knew—and scrambled backwards on his rear through the doorway. He grabbed the two-way beside him and yanked it to his mouth.

"CONTAINMENT FAILURE!_ REPEAT, CONTAINMENT FAILURE!! SOMEBODY GET DOWN HERE RIGHT THE FUCK—_"

Stardust backhanded the endtable, flinging it at Farceur. He sprawled on the floor, dropping the two-way, and the table flew over his head and smashed to pieces against the far wall, obliterating that radio. She charged at him, but he threw a leg up and across, catching the cell door with his foot and slamming it shut, getting the satisfaction of seeing her face impacting the clear plastic window.

She would not be deterred—she shrank herself down as fast as she could and threw herself through the keyhole again. Not bothering to open the door, she merely wormed her way through the innards of the lock mechanism and dived through the external hole.

Farceur lashed fists at her ferociously in her small state, but she was adept to this strategy, zipping about like a housefly until she could get to a safe enough distance to expand again. She fled from him, growing as she did so, and when she turned to face him, a full seven feet again, he was holding a mangled half of the endtable.

But neither would attack again—the audible hiss of the basement door opening echoed through the hall, and Stardust whirled away from Farceur. He realized he'd done what she'd wanted—called for backup. They would have to open that door to come to his aid, giving her some slim chance at escape.

As she hurtled up the stairs, her wild grin quickly became an infuriated snarl upon seeing Kich's titanic figure filling the doorway. She did not check herself, but redoubled her efforts and threw herself up the flight with all the strength she could muster, barreling into him with a shoulder charge directly into his midsection.

He didn't even take a step back.

Stardust screamed as her arm was wrenched by the impact, and in the next second Kich caught hold of her. She tried to force her way past him, but he was on a higher step, he was stronger, and he knew what he was doing. Trapping both her arms, Kich shifted Stardust's weight and twisted her to the ground. He placed a foot on the small of her back, holding her there until Rook appeared by his side, pointing a finger at the back of her head.

"Back to your cell, bitch," the commander snapped. Stardust knew his voice. Not eager to have the flesh melted off of her skull, she obeyed, waiting patiently for Kich to remove his foot, allowing herself to return to her standard height, and walking calmly to her wrecked cell.

Rook held the door open for her while Kich approached Farceur. "What happened?"

"She was able to get inside the manual lock and disengage it. I don't understand how. It's tamper-proof from that side—she should have been shocked by the electronic lock from doing that."

"No longer an issue," Rook muttered, placing a hand on the lock mechanism. When he took his hand away, the metal was warped.

"But if the electronic locks are malfunctioning…"

"Wake up Epidemic, then, he can easily stand guard and hold this door shut tonight. In the morning we'll install deadbolts instead of these pieces of shit."

"Yes, sir."

Kich blinked. "Do you think BRiT's little outburst could have caused the locks to short out?"

"Yeah, probably. Look, for fuck's sake, let's all just go to sleep."


	6. Chapter 6

_3:17 AM_

It could not have been that simple.

Draygoon sat wide awake on his cot as the rest of the Squad slept. The rest of them were prepared to accept that BRiT's earlier display could have cut the power to the jail cells as well as the rest of the base. They didn't know the security system as well as he did, though, and all of the failsafes that were in place.

Even if the main power source, the backup battery and the secondary generator had all been knocked out, it was only momentary. The locks, however, had turned off and stayed off. Even if the lights had flickered in the basement, why would Stardust have thought to try entering the lock mechanism after the power outage? Wouldn't she have assumed, like the entire Rook Squad, that the locks reactivated like the rest of the base's power?

Something else was up. Stardust wouldn't have risked her life to crawl into that lock unless she knew it would not fry her. Someone had alerted her to the fact that the locks were disabled, and Draygoon didn't think BRiT's outburst had anything to do with it.

He rose to his feet, taking his sunglasses and cap as he did so, and four minutes later he was at the security door.

"Draygoon, Ph.D., Class I," he muttered at the console. The door slid open to admit him, and he paused on the threshold.

Sitting on the floor, with his back against the door across from Stardust's, was a thin, somewhat pale youth with intense dark eyes that glared out from under a shaggy flop of brown hair. Healing holes in his earlobes and lips were the last memento of piercings that Rook Squad regulations had forced him to remove. He glanced away from Stardust's door momentarily to greet Draygoon politely.

This young man, Epidemic, had impressed the higher-ups in the Squad early on. Unlike many of the angry young males that had signed on, he had never questioned his placement in Class II status. He took his menial duties very seriously and so far had displayed competence and a cool head in his training.

Right now, he was focused on generating a magnetic field to keep Stardust's door held irremovably in place, since Rook had destroyed the physical lock.

"That's fine, Epidemic," Draygoon said. "Go take a quick break, get yourself a pick-me-up. She won't go anywhere while I'm here."

The younger agent grinned, standing and nodding to his superior as he ascended the stairs. Draygoon stood in the door's path until Epidemic was through—only Class I agents had voice access to this area.

"Just hang around in the war room and I'll come get you in a few minutes," Draygoon said as the door hissed shut. Rubbing his hands together, Epidemic headed towards the coffee maker, his eyes also drifting towards the drawer in which 53V3N hid all his snacks while oblivious to the fact that everyone knew how to pick the lock on it.

Draygoon grinned as he saw Stardust's door slowly swing open. He stepped between her and her escape, and she stopped in her tracks, startled.

"I'd sit quietly, if I were you," Draygoon said pleasantly. "I need to talk with your neighbor."

"And if I don't?" Stardust smiled sweetly, batting her eyelashes at him.

"I will seal you inside that cell and force you to grow until you smash yourself?"

She gasped with mock indignation. "You wouldn't hurt me. Not a gentleman like you."

Draygoon snorted.

"No, really. Any of those other young Rook Squad punks would have killed me today, but you chose to arrest me instead. You're not a brute."

"It was convenient for me."

"Say what you want, Draygoon."

"Just sit in your cell and don't pull any more bullshit or you'll find out how brutish I can get."

Her coy smile did not fade as she slunk back into her cell. Beneath his shades, Draygoon rolled his eyes and turned away from her to face the opposite door. He walked up and peered in through the small window. No one was to be seen.

From his back pocket, Draygoon produced a slender iron key. Disengaging the lock on the door before him, he stepped inside the empty cell. He eased the door shut behind him, locked it and put the key away.

Scanning the darkened cell, his eyes fell on the cot mattress, which sagged in the middle. The sheet on top crumpled and moved about on its own accord as he watched. Clearing his throat, Draygoon leaned back against the door and crossed his arms.

"You think you're pretty clever, don't you?"

The depression in the mattress disappeared, and the sound of soft footsteps filled the cell. The seat of the grungy toilet in the corner rose on its own. Draygoon sighed and turned away until he heard a flush.

"Look, I want to go back to bed. Play cutesy and ignore me all you want, see what happens," he snapped.

"What are you standing around wasting time for, then?" came the startlingly deep reply. The voice spoke softly and calmly, almost childishly, hinting at the deranged mind of the man who owned it. "Just read my mind and be on your way."

"You know damn well I couldn't make sense of any of the twisted mess in there. Were you responsible for Stardust's escape, yes or no?"

No response.

"Icarus."

His temper flaring, Draygoon gave in. Shutting his eyes, he located the room's other occupant solely from his emanating brain waves. Slowly invading Icarus's mind, he waded into a mental cacophony of freakish imagery and disembodied sounds. The only recurring concept he could gather from the random mess in Icarus's brain was a deep, penetrating fear of the cracked mirror over the sink.

The corner of his mouth crawled up in a grin as he retreated from Icarus's brain. "Why do you insist so much on remaining invisible anyway?" he sneered. "You've got no one to hide from."

"Draygoon, I swear, if you…"

The voice went silent. Draygoon had reached into his mind again, this time with a different intent. Rather than reading Icarus's thoughts, Draygoon's own brain waves overrode and hijacked them. The prisoner began to shuffle wordlessly towards the sink. Draygoon then commanded him to cast off his invisibility.

The figure that faded into sight before him was a tall, wiry young man, bespectacled and stubbled, with lean muscles that had the look and strength of steel cables. Even Draygoon's stomach turned when he looked upon Icarus's face, crisscrossed as it was by hideous, ragged white scars. Whoever had stitched him back together had done an extremely sloppy job, and had left his nose crooked, his lips frayed, and gaps in his hairline. His eyebrows were gone, burned off by the explosion that had thrown shrapnel in his face.

Icarus remained frozen, gripping the sink, wide-eyed and staring at his own image. Draygoon held him there for a good twenty seconds before releasing the mental control—and the screams would have awoken the entire Squad if not for the soundproofed basement door.

Shrieking and pleading for it to stop, Icarus threw himself at the mirror—and impacted it headfirst, shattering it and adding a fresh wound to his collection. Draygoon stood quietly as Icarus hit the floor, scrambling backwards to his cot and fading invisible again as he pulled the sheet around himself. He began muttering quietly, rocking back and forth. Red stains appeared on the sheet.

"Ready to talk yet?" Draygoon said. "I can do worse. I've got nothing but time, I'll stand right here and sort through that shithole of a mind of yours for hours until I find fears you didn't even know you had."

"Alright… alright. I was… foolish to defy you."

"More like pants-on-head retarded."

"If you move my endtable, you'll see what I've been doing."

Draygoon did so. A number of panels had been pried back from the wall and shoddily replaced. One lay on the floor, and the gap revealed the PVC pipe underneath that housed the electronics for the lock on his door. He'd evidently been searching for a long time for this exact thing, and had carved away a piece of the pipe.

Draygoon swore. Icarus, a one-time member of the Squad, had helped to build this exact place. It had been dumb-fuck stupid of them to imprison him in a cell he had seen the blueprints for.

"So you figured out how to short out the electrical locks?"

"Yes, and as you can see there, I can do it without alerting you in the surveillance room."

"Indeed. How long have they been down?"

"Weeks. It was only Stardust's arrest today that brought me someone who could make use of it."

"So the temporary power outage today had nothing to do with it?"

"The one caused by BRiT that I heard the others speak of? No, not a thing. That was just dumb luck."

Draygoon nodded slowly, producing his key again and reaching for the door.

"When you show Rook what I've done… how are you going to explain your brutality to a prisoner?"

The security chief paused in the door, turning to glance at the cot.

"I suppose what's happened tonight will have to be our little secret." With that, Draygoon closed the door and locked it behind him. He ascended the stairs and exited the basement as Icarus watched quietly from his small window. A few seconds later, Epidemic returned, taking his position at Icarus's door to keep Stardust locked inside.

Icarus glanced at the mirror that had fractured into a hundred shards. Was Draygoon really declining to inform Rook of his tampering with the locks?

Well, he would find out soon enough, Icarus decided as he lay down, sleep quickly overtaking him.


	7. Chapter 7

_9:30 AM_

Because of the late night, Rook had allowed them all an extra two hours of sleep. 53V3N felt fully refreshed as he stirred from the slumber, showered and donned his uniform. Despite this, he couldn't shake a slight feeling of gloom.

He knew its source. V3N was naturally competitive, and always felt second-best in HavokChylde's presence. The ninja had long been his mentor and good friend, but V3N had always hoped that he eventually would be able to defeat Havok in single combat. That day had not yet come after many years of hard training.

He joined Farceur and Kich in the hall, and the three of them descended the stairs from the second floor of the barracks and emerged into the war room. Unspun, AdrenaLyn, Jude and HrlyQnn, bunked on the first floor, were just ahead of them.

Commander Rook and Draygoon were already in the war room when the seven of them walked in. Rook was standing at the head of the room, and Draygoon was sitting in the first row of seats. Rook motioned for the rest of the team to sit as well. The Class II and III agents began to file in from the gymnasium, having been up since 8 o'clock cleaning it up. Absent from them was Epidemic, who had been given a pass on the cleaning thanks to his selection for guard duty the night before.

"I don't need to remind everyone that I expect no less than the utmost professional behavior while Moderators are present here," Rook announced to the room at large.

"Why did he, then?" came a quiet voice and a snicker to V3N's side. Snapping his head to his left, he rolled his eyes. Agent Eyeknow, a Class II who was incapable of taking anything seriously, was laughing quietly with whoever was on his other side. His ability, to project any image he could come up with as a phantasmal hologram in the real world, had led to some epic pranks, and an exaggerated self-image. There was no denying his skill, but his attitude annoyed the higher-ups and was the only obstacle between him and Class I status.

"As most of you know," Rook went on, "the Giygax cargo plane carrying our expected Darkling Units crashed yesterday, despite the efforts of Draygoon, myself, and Gea, God rest his soul. As of last night, to clear up any and all gossip, the recovery effort failed and we are taking it upon ourselves to comb the area for a possible surviving Darkling. That is why two Moderators are on their way here right now.

"I am aware that Phrosty is likely also searching for the Darkling," he continued. "For that reason, we will be traveling in as large groups as possible. Everyone present will be involved in the search. Consider this a special opportunity to get some field experience, as well as some face time with the Class I agent you will be assigned to. The woods are crawling with dangerous animals and probably some unsavory characters who are after the same thing we are. Exemplary performance and caution in the field will be rewarded with consideration for promotion."

At that moment the outer door hissed open and the imposing figures of HavokChylde and Jane Deere strode in. The two of them joined Rook at the front of the room, looking over the assembly. Jane seemed perfectly content—she was used to being looked at. Havok, however, glowered at the lot of them, uncomfortable at having so many eyes upon him.

Rook immediately sensed his old friend's discomfort. "Well, you're all free to go for the next few hours," he said to the agents. "You will be shortly receiving an email informing you which Class I agent you have been assigned to. Meeting adjourned, get outta here," he said with a dismissive wave of the hand.

As the IIs and IIIs filed out, and the Class Is went to the front of the room, Rook turned to Havok and Jane, dropping his formal tone with a broad smile.

"Look, whatever was said between me and BRiT, I don't care why you're here, but it sure is good to see you fuckers again. I gave the Squad a bit of time to chill before we go to field, so is there anything you wanna do? We've made some new additions here."

Jane smiled. "I just want to get back out there and doing real work again as soon as we can. But I did see some new stuff out on the grounds that looked pretty kickass."

HrlyQnn came to her side. "You saw the guns, but you didn't see the hardcore shit I installed out there. Here, let's go for a walk and I'll show you one of the _new_ drones."

The two of them walked off, arm in arm. Through his black mask, Havok's eyes shifted across the Class I agents until they found their mark. "I don't believe we've met properly."

Draygoon stepped forward to shake his hand. "No, we haven't."

"It's nothing personal," Havok said slowly, "but the Moderators as a rule try not to go around you. You know, we have secrets we don't want getting out, and nothing's exactly private around you."

Draygoon shrugged. Havok remained looking at him, as if waiting for him to speak, but he didn't.

Rook spoke up to break the silence. "Anything you want to see or do, man?"

Havok grinned under his mask, eyes moving about again. "Honestly, I don't give much of a crap about any new gadgets you've got here, Rook," he said, "but I will take a piece of  
_him._" He raised his arm to point.

53V3N felt it. His blood was rushing now. He'd been singled out, and he could never back down from such a challenge.

"Aw, yeah," said Kich. "This is always good shit."

_9:49 AM_

Side by side outside the steel door that led into the chamber where MEH ruled supreme, V3N and Havok removed their weapons and placed them in a locker. From another compartment, they retrieved hard rubber facsimiles of their blades and slid them into their sheaths.

In the days when they had sparred often, the two had preferred to use their live weapons in straight toe-to-toe fights. When they planned on having MEH change the scenery up to provide a stealth-based fight, however, they opted for the rubber weapons so that they could catch each other off guard with hard hits but no real injury.

V3N pulled the door open and motioned for Havok to enter. As the Moderator stepped in, taking in the wide, empty space he knew so well, he called out.

"MEH, I'm thinking jungle today. Be a dear and throw in some flames, black smoke cover. Anything to limit vision and make background noise. Get creative for us."

The responding cool female voice filled the chamber. "Generally I prefer not to actively try and scare anyone, but I know how you love a challenge, HavokChylde."

"If you could cook and give head, MEH, I'd fucking marry you. Get on it."

The room began to waver sickeningly as the hundreds of projectors in the walls started casting light all over the room, carefully coordinated to create realistic three-dimensional objects. Solid metal cylinders slid up from the floor, and became disguised as trees. Black smoke poured in through vents on the ceiling, obscuring it and adding realism with its smell of burning wood. Soundtracks of flames and jungle sounds began to play.

Before the smoke had a chance to settle to the floor, the wall at one end of the room was bathed in a bright blue light, and the wall at the opposite end shone red.

"HavokChylde, please proceed to the blue corner," said MEH. "53V3N, to the red corner, if you would." The two exchanged a glance, and headed off in opposite directions. The colors faded and the smoke sank to the floor, obscuring vision beyond a few feet.

In the adjacent room, a series of monitors flicked on, showing the heat signatures of every object in the gymnasium. The hulking red and yellow form of V3N was crouched, while the smaller form of Havok clambered soundlessly up a cold blue tree. As vision inside the actual arena was impossible, Rook and the Class I agents gathered eagerly around the monitors.

"Begin," said MEH in her bored tone.

While in the back of his mind there was no real fear, it was nearly impossible not to forget at times that these exercises were only illusions. The sounds were too natural, the smells too close, the images too detailed. MEH was very good at what she did, which was simulating an actual field situation in as realistic and visceral a manner as was technologically possible.

Of course, the "trees" appeared to be made of rough bark but were still cold and smooth to the touch, and the ground, though it looked like strewn flora, was hard and flat. But as the human mind trusts its eyes and ears over all else, it hardly mattered. MEH even detected every step V3N made and marked each one with a quiet crunching sound, as if he were really walking on dirt and fallen leaves, and she created rustling noises if he brushed against one of the hanging holographic branches. She'd been designed almost too well. She had proven capable of seriously freaking out some of the less hardened younger agents.

Leaves flickered around him as he crept forward, and he glanced around. Birds. They were fleeing the fire, which he could hear to his left. As he watched, the entire jungle area became alive with noise, holographic animals disturbing foliage as they fled in his direction. All birds and small mammals, quick and noisy in their panic.

And his trained ears detected one larger creature among them. He grinned, his hand wrapping around the long knife strapped to his back. As he heard the heavy steps and the rustling branches approaching, he reached over his head to grab a branch, and easily pulled himself one-armed off the ground. Crouching in the tree, he held his breath, keeping absolutely still.

He could barely see the ground, but he saw the large form that rushed through the smoke beneath him. Under cover of its own loud footsteps he dropped to the ground and darted up behind it. But as he came close enough to see it vaguely, he realized it could not have been Havok—it was on all fours.

The jaguar roared and spun to face him, leaping off the ground. For a moment V3N understood the fear MEH could instill in the younger agents—he twisted away and ducked instinctively, forgetting momentarily that the animal would simply pass through him harmlessly. The beast passed over him, vanishing in the smoke, and he stood. But a gurgling growl told him the jaguar was not finished with him.

He whirled around just in time to see the cat lunging at him a second time, and again his muscles acted of their own accord—he sidestepped the attack and drove down with lethal force with his knife.

The animal vanished immediately, MEH's peculiar way of acknowledging that, had the jaguar been flesh and bone, V3N would have killed it.

He pressed on into the suffocating smoke, relying completely on his ears, walking as quietly as he could. The constant, distracting rustling of panicked birds fleeing the fire was starting to grate on his nerves. He crouched low, trying to filter out the noise in the trees and concentrate on any sign of approaching footsteps.

From his right came a sudden faint whistling sound that grew louder very quickly. He looked up just in time to see a black rubber star whistle through the air where his neck would have been had he not ducked down. It bounced off a tree and landed on the ground a foot away from him.

_I put everything I have into being completely silent, and this motherfucker still pinpoints me exactly using nothing but the sounds I'm making. Son of a bitch._

Picking up the star, V3N tossed it into the haze in front of him, hearing it hit the ground and bounce once. To his great joy, he heard a faint sound of motion, something large moving slowly through the trees in a direction perpendicular to the fluttering birds, making a beeline for the star he'd thrown.

V3N set off after Havok, angling his approaching to close the distance between them as quickly as he could. Before he'd gone twenty feet, he stopped dead in surprise.

The Moderator was standing right in front of him, facing away, peering at the ground. His heart leaping into his throat, V3N tightened his grip on his rubber knife and moved forward.

Havok crouched down. When he stood again, he was holding his own throwing star, looking at it closely.

A bead of sweat rolling down V3N's forehead, he gulped. His fingers gripped the weapon as he took another step. When he moved within three feet of Havok, he lunged.

An elbow rocketed back and cracked V3N right in the face, knocking his head back and stunning him. His vision obscured by a painful red blur, he never saw his opponent move, only felt his throat suddenly closed in the crook of an arm and a stiletto ground painfully against his ribcage.

"Cease," came MEH's deadpan. When V3N could see again, he and Havok were standing alone in the cold, featureless gymnasium once again, the smoke drawn to the ceiling and out of the room through vents.

Though V3N could feel the hot flush of his face from embarrassment, he was surprised to see that Havok did not look at all pleased.

"I'm so rusty, man," Havok growled. "I made so many damn mistakes. I got startled by a freaking holographic snake, I missed with the star, I fell for you tossing it and I let you get too close. Hell, if you hadn't swallowed so loud and shook in your boots like you did, you would have had me that time."

V3N only nodded, spitting a red wad of saliva onto the gym floor. For all his self-critique, Havok had still beaten him yet again. The Squad was more than complimentary of V3N's performance when the two rejoined them in the next room, but none of that mattered to him. He still wasn't good enough.


	8. Chapter 8

_12:15 PM_

"I don't like it," Rook growled.

He sat with his Class I core team at the row of computers at the front of the war room. Plates of mixed vegetables, baked chicken and gritty mashed potatoes steamed, mostly untouched, next to their keyboards while they tossed around names and assembled their search teams.

The commander glanced at the rear door, through the glass window of which he could see Havok and Jane speaking, and then leaned close to Draygoon. "They need chips in their heads."

The security chief looked briefly at Rook. "Why? Because they're so goddamned jittery that they think I'm going to go looking through their brains for things BRiT doesn't want us to know about?"

"I don't like them being secretive with us either, but we need them to trust us fully if we're ever going to build up a working relationship. And when most of them won't meet me in person because they don't want to be around my wingman, we have a fucking problem."

Draygoon looked at the door. "By the way, they're delusional if they think hiding back there is going to do shit. They're talking about how MaxPower got another call from Moguera today."

Jude, on Rook's other side, leaned across him to join the conversation, much to his dismay. "Demetrius Moguera? The president of Giygax Corp?"

"Know any other guys named Moguera? Anyway, he's actually threatening the Council to get them to make sure this Darkling thing is completely covered up."

"Fuck, Dray, this is what I'm talking about," Rook snapped. "We can't be spying on the Mods."

But now the others had turned to listen, and Draygoon wasn't talking to him anymore. "BRiT doesn't want us knowing this, but several of the Mods are Giygax stockholders. Moguera says he's sure the stock will plunge if this gets out, and if the Mods try to cut and run, he'll slam them with an insider trading indictment. The Council's having a shit fit."

Unspun smiled nastily, her fangs adding to the effect. "We got more riding on this one than we thought, don't we?"

"Knock it off," Rook snarled.

"It would be a tall order for Moguera to accuse the Mods of anything if his own company got that kind of bad publicity," Farceur pondered aloud, "but I guess he could pull enough strings to get it done. Depends on how hard of a hit his own assets take, really."

As Jude opened her mouth to respond to him, a spout of flame leapt up between them, barely missing either of their faces, and they both instinctively jerked back, squinting at the heat that stung their eyes.

All eyes flew to Rook as he blew a wisp of black smoke away from his right palm. "I said 'shut the fuck up,'" he said slowly, looking coldly at each of them in turn. "This discussion is over. Dray, get the chips made by the end of the week. One for each Moderator."

"Yes, sir."

"Everyone else, get the teams put together. We're leaving in one hour and forty-five minutes."

His cowed team turned back to their computers. They said no more about Havok and Jane's discussion, but Rook was not pleased. Fingers fidgeting, he swallowed the sudden lump in his throat.

_My Class Is just flat-out ignored me._

_2:00 PM_

Sharply at two in the afternoon, the Class IIs and IIIs, having read their assignments and prepared accordingly, stood sorted into their search groups on the Rook Squad base's grounds, just outside the hangar door. Each Class I, and Havok, stood with a group. Only HrlyQnn's group was unattended, as she was nowhere to be seen, and Jane Deere, who planned on utilizing her speed to cover extra ground and scout ahead, had no group.

"Spread out as far as you can, but stay within sight and earshot of your group leader," Rook called out to the aggregation. "Don't go off alone. We have reason to think there will be opposing forces in the woods today."

At that, the main hangar door began to slide to the side. The industrial lighting inside it illuminated a huge, sleek, low-profile jet, matte-painted for stealth and strapped to the teeth with bombs and air-to-air missiles. This was HrlyQnn's work horse, the _Eistensturm,_ built like a passenger jet on the inside with the capacity to seat nearly all of them and standing room with grip bars for the rest. A good deal clunkier and heavier than a standard Air Force fighter jet, it made up for the lack of mobility with a massive payload and the ability to withstand elevated amounts of physical damage.

Beneath the _Eisten_'s belly, a ramp hissed down and settled against the hangar floor, with a bang that reverberated inside the hangar and out to their ears. Hrly descended the ramp and stood to one side.

"She's ready to go, chief," she called out, and Rook motioned for everyone to begin boarding.

_2:21 PM_

Annoyed by the bright chime that had awakened him, the pirate king raised his head and looked sleepily at his computer. Invigorated by a deep breath of the salty coastal air, he rose from his bed and staggered across the room to see who had sent him email.

His eyes flew fully open when he saw the name of his correspondent. He opened the email and read quickly.

TOSTIG,

EN ROUTE TO CRASH SITE. ARRIVE IN ~6HRS.

DrD

Closing the email, the pirate king opened the door to his cabin and shouted up from belowdecks. One of the perks of having a high-tech pirate ship with Wi-Fi, he thought, was that he had complete privacy but his entire crew was within his yelling range at all times.

"Darklight, get yer lard ass down here!" he roared.

_7:39 PM_

The Squad clambered out of the _Eistensturm,_ eager to get back on their feet after the five and a half hour flight. No one wasted any time--they were all happy to be walking again. Rook led all of them to the edge of the crash site first.

"Last night and this morning the firefighters dumped about thirty tons of water over this area," he said to all of them, "so whatever was left after the explosion has been scattered or buried more than it already was. No one's doing an investigation, so we're free to take any evidence we think we need. Be cautious, and be thorough." With that, he dismissed them all. The Class Is fanned out into the woods, and their groups followed them.

Rook and Jane stared at the blasted remains of the cargo plane's skeleton.

"I'm going to the road," said Jane. "I figure I'll run to the nearest town in each direction and see if I can collect information."

Rook glanced down at the cell phones on their belts. "Not much of a signal out here. How do we reach you if we need you?"

She produced a two-way radio. "Havok's got the other one."

With that, she took off running, vanishing instantly, heralded only by the rush of wind in her wake that battered the foliage, and the spray of moist dirt she kicked up at Rook.

Spitting and wiping his face and jacket, he glanced down at the rut her fast-moving feet had created in the soft dirt. Something caught the sun and glimmered at him, and he crouched down to pick it up.

"What in God's name..." he muttered as he examined the object in his hands. It looked like a finger bone with a strip of metal bonded to it.

But it couldn't have been a bone. Hrly's scans had indicated no humans involved in the crash, only the machine cargo. It had to be something else. He dismissed the object, dropping it onto the ground.

"Where's Eyeknow?" he heard Farceur call out.

"I'm over here."

_7:45 PM_

"Don't go where I can't see you," Farceur warned as he set off in Eyeknow's direction.

"Eye know, but check this out. Look what Eye found," he replied, still out of sight.

Farceur quickened his pace. "What have you got?"

"It's like a blood trail or something--hey, what the fuck, man?"

"What's going on? Eyeknow!" Getting no reply, Farceur broke into a run. Ahead of him, he heard rustling--sounds of a scuffle.

"Motherfucker, I'll kill your dumbass for that--AAAAARGHH!!"

Eyeknow's scream caused several heads to snap in his direction. Farceur burst through a thick patch of low foliage--and there was Eyeknow, crumpling, curling into a fetal position, a fine white cloud settling around him, the curved shards of what looked like a broken test tube glimmering in the dirt in front of him. His assailant stood frozen, staring at Farceur, who recognized him on sight--husky and heavily muscled, surly and clad in dirty work pants, Darklight remained looking at him for a panicked second before turning around and hightailing into the woods.

"Rook! One of Tostig's goons!" Farceur roared. Instinctively holding his sleeve over his nose as he looked at the white dust on the insensate Eyeknow, he backed away, pushing through the thick foliage again to give Rook an easier time finding him. The commander and several others arrived after five tense seconds.

"It was Darklight," Farceur said. "I think he broke a vial of mushroom stamp in Eyeknow's face. He took off that way." Still holding his sleeve over his face, Farceur stepped through the low branches over to Eyeknow.

Havok whipped the two-way from his belt to his face. "We got a situation, Jane, thirty yards north of crash site, agent down, suspect fleeing northeast on foot, over."

"Please repeat, didn't copy that, over."

Rook yanked the radio from Havok's hand. "Darklight was here and he poisoned one of my agents! We're north of the crash site and we don't know how far he's gone! Get your ass over here, Jane, he's getting away!!"


	9. Chapter 9

_7:57 PM_

Jane ran.

She hadn't taken off at her full speed when departing from Rook's side, but the tone of his voice on the radio convinced her to turn it up.

The charred grounds of the crash site flashed by beneath her feet, and she kept her eyes sharp for trees and wandering agents. It had taken many years of live training to develop her reflexes to the point where she could consistently see objects in time to dodge them.

Even so, she passed by several agents closely enough that the turbulent air she displaced knocked them right on their asses.

Normally she couldn't hear surrounding sounds very well over the roar of air by her ears, but she clearly hear the hot-blooded commander because of the volume of his voice.

"GO THE FUCK AROUND!" Rook spoke to her from the radio at her hip. "YOU'LL KICK THE VIRUS ALL OVER THE PLACE!"

She quickly understood and altered her course to take her slightly east, which would give her the added benefit of intercepting the assailant sooner. She ground to a halt, checking her surroundings. A trail of broken twigs and heavy footprints caught her eye, and she smiled to herself. Hot on the thug's trail, she broke into a sprint. A mere second later, she caught him.

He never had a chance.

Darklight had spun around at the sound, and was facing Jane when she bore down on him. His hands curled into fists, and his eyes went black as he invoked his power, preparing to create a tiny singularity around himself that would engulf all the light in the area and throw his pursuer into complete darkness. He wasn't fast enough.

Jane never bothered to alter her course or even check her speed, but drove straight at him and throwing up a forearm as she drew near.

Her flying elbow met him squarely in the sternum, gripping his entire upper body with pain as each and every rib shattered. Jane's velocity transferred to him by the impact, Darklight was sent flying—

—and met a low, thick tree branch with his spine. The tree swayed back and groaned as he smashed into it and folded backwards around the branch. Jane planted her feet to the earth and slid to a stop, staring at her enemy, his back hopelessly broken, his face contorted in a silenced scream as his corpse hit the ground.

_8:02 PM_

"It was Darklight, all right," Jane scowled. "And he had these on him."

Well insulated in a padded plastic case on his person, two spare glass vials of white powder had survived Jane's onslaught. She handed these off to Rook, who inspected them closely.

"I bet you anything this is mushroom stamp," Rook growled, "but we'll take Eyeknow back to base and see if he develops those symptoms. I guess we know who the culprit is now."

"How would Tostig have been able to engineer a disease?" Farceur said. "As I understand it, he's a crime lord, not a virologist."

"He's got money--lots of it," Havok spoke up. "Who knows who he's been able to hire. I wonder why he'd target the Rook Squad, though. I thought he had issues with the Council."

Rook was not paying attention--he was gazing down at the discovery that had caused Eyeknow to wander off in the first place. The dirt and surrounding low foliage at their feet were caked in a dark, reddish-black substance that formed a trail directly west. Rook crouched and touched a blade of grass. The substance was still wet--viscuous and oily.

"... Hydraulic fluid," he muttered. "Call off the search. Round up the IIs and IIIs. Load up the _Eistensturm_ and prep it for launch. Quarantine Eyeknow in the very back. When I return, we are heading back to base."

Farceur nodded and departed to relay his command. Rook started walking along the fluid trail, Havok and Jane behind him.

_8:10 PM_

The three of them stood at the side of a road that cut a curved path north-south through the forest. The blood-like trail ended abruptly at the asphalt.

"Great, now what?" Jane sighed. "We're back where we started, following the road. But which way did the Unit go?"

"North," Havok growled.

"Excuse me?"

"Use your eyes," the ninja said, stepping out onto the street and pointing down. "The trail ends here, on the east side of the road. That means she got into the right side of a car heading north."

"If the Unit had hitchhiked south," Jane said slowly as the realization came to her, "the trail would go all the way across the road as she got into a car on the other side." She understood. If the trail had stopped in the center of the road, that would have implied that she could have gotten into the left rear seat of a car going either direction, and that would not have helped them. But this discovery did.

_8:21 PM_

All heads turned to face the front of the _Eistensturm_ when Rook stepped on board and whistled. He spoke loudly, even though he had no background chatter to compete with.

"We are returning to base now, but we've found a lead and I want to follow it immediately. It's getting dark, so I want Unspun to stay here and investigate--she's the strongest at night. Jude, you'll go with her to extract information from anyone you see. AdrenaLyn, you too. For transport and firepower. I'll lead you back to the trail we found, and then we'll be out of here."

The three women stood and nodded to acknowledge their orders.

_2:03 AM, March 30th, 2008_

_Another damn late night,_ HrlyQnn thought bitterly as she staggered down the ramp of her jet and made her way back to her quarters. She hoped the search team would take quite a while to find any evidence of the Darkling Unit, because she knew it would be her duty to fly all the way the hell back out there again to pick them up and transport them back to base.

A buzzing sound broke her out of her thoughts, and she turned her head sleepily as she walked down the hall. Behind her, heading briskly for the elevator to return to the room he'd been given, HavokChylde pulled his vibrating cell phone off of his belt. She watched him with mild interest as Jane Deere hurried to join him.

Havok mouthed something as he glanced down at his phone and then back to Jane. From Hrly's guess, it looked like he said _BRiT, _or possibly _shit. _Hrly lost interest as the elevator slid closed, and retreated into her quarters for the night.

Sure they were alone, Havok flipped open his phone. He waited through the brief static noise that indicated the cell signal was being encrypted.

"Yeah, boss."

"Report," came BRiT's characteristically curt voice.

"A few solid leads were found. A trail of hydraulic fluid has told us that the Unit did, in fact, survive the crash, though it was injured, and we know which direction it went. We were also attacked--by Darklight, a Tostig affiliate. We believe he has infected Agent Eyeknow, RS Class II. Jane dispatched Darklight and recovered evidence from his body."

"A productive day indeed. Are you alone?"

"Just Jane and me, in the elevator. No, Agent Draygoon isn't around. He stayed in the war room with the Commander when the rest of us headed for the barracks."

"Alright. I will have MaxPower relay this information back to Mr. Moguera."

"It fucking pisses me off that that little prick's got you by the balls," Havok spat before he could contain himself.

"We all feel the same. Trust me, once the Unit is secure and in the Rook Squad's hands, we will quite enjoy settling with Giygax Corporation without that leverage hanging over our heads."

"I wanna be there to see it when that scumbag gets his."

"Wouldn't dream of excluding either of you." A click. BRiT had hung up. Havok stuck the phone back on its clip and repeated BRiT's words to Jane.

"I can't wait to see the look on old Moguera's face when we stick it to him after the evidence is gone and he's got nothing on us," she smiled. At that, the elevator stopped, opening the door to herald their private guest floor. They bid each other goodnight and closed themselves into their separate bedrooms.


	10. Chapter 10

_?????_

He woke up sitting on a bench at a police station. He blinked his blurred vision into clarity to survey the yellowed dingy walls of the precinct, and to note that every officer was giving him wide-eyed undivided attention. A disembodied voice dripping with a heavily drawled southern accent told silent disembodied ears that the John Doe was awake. He looked down and saw that he was wearing several layers of oversized clothes, soft slippers, and a full set of shackles which were connected to an eye-bolt firmly set in the concrete floor.

A rotund authoritative looking uniformed man stepped around the corner holding a set of keys and looked at the handcuffed mystery man with a smug unsettling look that was some combination of contempt and satisfaction. He hated him instantly. Two officers flanked their superior and kept one hand on their sidearms at all times. Wordlessly, the large smug man gripped the shackles firmly and yanked the unknown man off the bench only to send him face-first onto the floor. Unable to use his hands to break his fall, he bore the brunt of the impact on the crown of his forehead. Instantly, a trickle of blood began to pool onto the concrete.

A jingle of keys and a metallic snap announced that the shackles were now free of the eye-bolt, and then as suddenly as he was tossed to the floor, he was yanked to his feet by the subordinate officers. By his arms, he was hauled, very nearly dragged, down a narrow corridor lined with cork boards and fluorescent lights. By the time he was brought to stand in front of a windowless steel door with a simple deadbolt lock, he had lost both slippers and had come to the startling realization that he had very little strength. He was quickly shoved inside and felt the distinct impression of someone's boot in his spine, sending him off balance and again bringing him face to face with a concrete floor. The deadbolt latched in the door behind him. The room seemed to be monochrome until his eyes adjusted to the low light level, and he managed to make out a table with 2 chairs on opposing sides. The walls were the same kind of smooth sealed concrete as the floor and were completely blank aside from four small upturned lights which cast pale yellow lights across the ceiling which did little to chase away the shadows, and taking up the majority of one wall was a large pane of reflective glass.

He found enough strength to flop himself onto a chair and sat facing the large mirror, confident in the assumption that it was a cliché two-way mirror. Despite the ambient darkness of the room in which he now sat, he could no more see into the adjacent room than he could into the murkiness that was at this point his memory.

Suddenly, he stopped trying to see through the mirror and began looking into it. He connected with the eyes of a stranger who looked like hell. The stranger's oversized clothes hung from his scant frame the way his clothes hung from him, and a lone trail of blood ran from his forehead. His dark hair was lengthier but not long, and looked like a classic case of bed head. In spite of his otherwise disheveled appearance, he was surprised to see that he was relatively clean shaven, and had showered recently.

On his shoulders hung a gray billowy shirt, unbuttoned revealing a dingy blue colored jumpsuit. He pulled aside the left half of the shirt to see the lone designation 3-DRAD-10, which at first appeared to read "3Dradio". He tried to milk his memory for any meaning behind either version of the moniker, but in every form it remained indecipherable.

The deadbolt in the windowless steel door spoke with a staccato clack and the door swung open to reveal the portly superior and his two lackeys. The lackey on the left remained at the door and engaged the deadbolt. He handed the keys to his boss with his left hand while his right remained on his firearm. The two subordinates stood in position in the two corners opposite the chair in which 3Dradio sat. The older, higher ranking officer sat in the other chair, and put his boots up on the scuff marked table.

"Let's start with your name," said the seated superior. "Since we're doing introductions, I'm chief Jack Maggard." His round face was an almost merry palate for his neatly trimmed mustache, but nothing short of a snow-white beard and red suit could take away the malice.

"I have no idea what my name is." 3Dradio stated bluntly.

"No idea," said Maggard, seemingly amused at 3Dradio's answer "We'll just have to refresh your memory Mr. Doe. We found you passed out in the middle of 28 bodies and enough damage to look like a tornado went through and a bomb went off."

"I don't know anything about any tornadoes…or bombs."

"How about you cooperate and tell us what we want to know before I have to perform my own special brand of interrogation?"

"I don't know my name. I don't know anything about 28 bodies, tornadoes, or any bombs. What I do know is that you stepped in something with your idiotic looking cowboy boots that smells like yesterday's alpo."

"Carl, you have your taser on you?" Maggard asked the officer on his left. Wordlessly, the officer known as Carl handed the instrument to his superior and returned to his corner with his hand on his sidearm. Maggard then took his boots off the table and leaned closer to 3Dradio who still had a warm trail of blood trickling down the middle of his face.

3Dradio said nothing, but licked at the blood running along his lip and down his chin. He flashed a gleeful grin, now stained crimson with his own blood. After several seconds of staring face to face with Maggard, he said through reddened teeth, "Actually, your boots smelled better."

"I'm going to ask you one more time…" Maggard barked and spat as he spoke before pausing a moment to consider his words. "No, I'm not." He shot the twin darts into 3Dradio's chest at point blank range, sending the shackled mystery man into spasms and for a third time face to face with the concrete.

Inside his head, memories stirred and visions of figures and strobing lights danced around until his sight returned. His sight seemed to usher in blurred memories of electrodes as well as a kinship with the inky darkness that enveloped the corners of the room. Before any more elusive lucidity could return to him, the subordinate known as Carl and his counterpart hauled 3Dradio back into the chair from which he'd previously been blown by the 50,000 volt blast. They retook their previous positions and waited with their hands still on their firearms, though they were now much more relaxed since he'd been tased. They all stared at 3Dradio for a long moment before he spoke.

"I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you have as much skill at interrogation as you have at personal hygiene. I'm sure I do know how to tell you this though. You're about to die a confused painful death." Suddenly, the pointed shadows running along the corners flexed and drew away from the walls before they solidified, looking like smoke-tinted glass. They then moved like menacing translucent blades, crossing behind 3Dradio like swords on a mantle piece.

Both subordinate officers drew their firearms and leveled them at 3Dradio's head. The subordinate not known as Carl broke his silence. "Whatever it is you're doing stop right now, or I will shoot!" He was speaking with the voice of authority despite it being very obvious that he was scared out of his sissy britches.

The officer known as Carl shot first. His Glock issued an ear-shattering report and a cloud of smoke and debris flew from the weapon's ejection port. Hearing the report from Carl's weapon, the other officer followed suit, firing only one shot before realizing something was very wrong. His hand was throbbing and stinging. As he brought his hand into view, what remained of it sent him instantly into shock. Exposed shattered bone and arterial spray were the last images he would see before embracing oblivion and collapsing onto pieces of his weapon now scattered around on the floor.

Maggard looked stunned and confused. He looked down at the body of not-Carl, and then at Carl to discover him slumped in the corner, his uniform shirt soaked with blood from puncture wounds in his face and neck. He had been killed almost instantly by parts of the weapon which had been blown through the back of the slide. Finally, Maggard managed to force his body to react. He reached into his holster , retrieved his .357 revolver, and drew a bead on 3Dradio's forehead.

"If I were you, I wouldn't pull that trigger," 3Dradio hissed with more malice than any of the crooked cops could have mustered. "Unless you want to see what a revolver looks like when it backfires. Firearms do funny things when there are impenetrable shadows congealed in their barrels." Maggard lowered his weapon, not eager to watch his Smith & Wesson turn into gunmetal colored shrapnel.

"The keys to your shackles, they're on my belt. They're yours. You can unlock the door and walk. I won't stop you. You won't have to kill me…you won't even have to touch me. I can make it look like you were never here."

"You're right about one thing. You won't stop me." 3Dradio growled through his still-reddened teeth. Unseen shadows audibly torqued the inner workings of the shackle cuffs until all four disengaged in unison and fell away. He stood to his full height of six feet two inches and glared into the face of the crooked cop. "Do you realize the number of places shadows hide? I could impale you with one of these things behind me, or I could make your head explode. How much shadow do you think lurks in a human cranium? The chest cavity? The lower intestine…I could do things to you that would make you redefine words like pain and hell. For that matter, I could choke you to death with your own shadow…or cut you to ribbons with it."

"Please, no. I've got a wife and kids…I've got grandkids…"

"Sorry," 3Dradio interrupted. "Looks like you're not going to make it to retirement to collect that largely undeserved pension."

Then, one of the shadow blades curled past 3Dradio's shoulder and shot straight for the chest of Jack Maggard, piercing his sternum and pinning him to his chair. A few seconds later, the steel door burst from its frame and into the narrow corridor through which he'd been dragged only moments prior. Menacingly yet barefoot, 3Dradio plod on unsteady steps through the jagged opening.

_3:32 AM, February 16, 2008_

In a cold sweat, he sat up in bed and looked for signs of the kind of damage he'd just dreamt he'd inflicted. Relieved, he discovered his shadow mastery had remained in his subconscious and had not wreaked untold havoc on his surroundings. It had been years since he woke to find he'd trashed the place in his sleep. His nights were usually plagued by this story. The recurring dream of his earliest memories haunted him nightly the way the longing to solve the mystery of his life beforehand haunted his days.

3Dradio's story was sketchy at best beyond 7 years ago when the episode at the police station had taken place, and even he didn't remember much of his life prior. In the 7 years since the incident, several memories had returned, from the days and weeks before, and some from the years prior.

What was known was that he was one of the third and last generation of a failed program designed to take otherwise ordinary yet gifted youths and turn them into super soldiers. When he entered the program and when it was shut down weren't known. What was known was that his participation was not by choice, and that it left him with virtually no pre-existing memories. He never understood why he was discovered amid chaos and corpses in the hangar of a small airport on the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma, why those 28 bodies had the same kinds of jumpsuits on, or why he had to waste almost 30 people whose faces he could barely remember. Then his mind flashed back to the manila folder he'd lifted from the police station during his devastating maelstrom escape.

As was his morning ritual most days, he took the aged folder from its place on the bookshelf and pored over the contents trying to remember anything. What made the least sense to him was why there were 28 people there, 29 including himself. 30 seemed like a more sensible number, as the small charter plane next to where he and the other bodies were discovered had been equipped to service 30 passengers, not 29. He pored over the pictures of bodies hacked to bits and the blood spattered plane and read the bland reports of the condition of the unconscious lone survivor.

It was dismally apparent that this discovery was kept secret by the police who had taken him into custody, and that they were tragically inept at handling such situations. He assumed they either wanted the glory for solving a case that would have most likely gone to state or even federal bureaus or they somehow found out about the DRAD program and wanted to keep the last one for themselves. He considered the latter farfetched, though the former made only slightly more sense to him.

Aside from mixed blurred flash-memories of what could only be described as torture as opposed to training, he had some idea of who he was before he was discovered, if only that in high school his large frame and excess bulk contributed to the harassment of the coaches who desperately wanted to make a football player out of him. Much to their chagrin, he hated sports with the exception of Martial Arts and the non-NASCAR version of Auto Racing. Everything else he had learned about who he was before his first memories had been conjecture.

Since coming to in the police station, it was discovered that he could outdrive pretty much anyone with pretty much anything, and had even gone off-roading and Rally Cross racing a few times. He had an ear for languages, which had earned him a working knowledge of Spanish, French, and German. He abhorred country music with a passion that burned with the fury of ten thousand suns, knew more about weapons than he could ever explain, had an extensive knowledge of history, an intricate knowledge of both Martial Arts and human anatomy, and no idea how he knew any of it.

Since getting zapped with the taser seemed to unlock the knowledge of his shadow mastery which had before then apparently been temporarily forgotten, he tried electroshock therapy to try to uncover lost memories, but had never discovered anything except the unwanted side effects of voltage on the human body.

Since escaping from the police station and fleeing to other parts of the country and the world at large, he had perfected his shadow mastery to startling proficiency. He had caused backfires with solidified shadows in the barrels of countless guns, crushed hearts, exploded heads, used shadows as shields, suffocated one person in a sphere of solidified shadow, and once for effect turned someone inside out, leaving nothing but a peeled cadaver with a shadow core that for several moments retained its form. He had used his singular talent as both an assassin for hire and a free agent pursuing his own interests. His limitations were basically his imagination and his sphere of influence, which was a number kept very very secret.

He reordered the papers and photos as he preferred them, slipped them back into the manila folder and replaced it on the bookshelf. He walked to the window and looked across the sea of lights that was Berlin. He pinched the bridge of his nose having made no more sense of his past, and considered going back to sleep, being it was only just past 3:30 in the morning. Knowing that would most likely mean another round with Maggard, and having no desire to do so, he walked into the kitchenette and started a pot of coffee.

He considered his most recent alliance with continued reluctance, but with what his proposed business partner was offering it was hard to turn down a payday of such magnitude. When nothing else made sense, and when nothing intangible could be made real, the tangibles were an acceptable substitute, and few things were more tangible to 3Dradio than cold hard cash. Still, something didn't sit right with him about it. However, each and every time he was double-crossed, he made good on his promise to redefine anguish, and of course to terminate lives. Sometimes he was merely a being of pure sadism and retribution, and when the situation warranted, he never had reservations or regrets about ending a life. This was something that unnerved him a little, but that he attributed to his training at the failed DRAD program.

As the doubts rolled over and over in his mind, he stared in deep thought at the lights of Berlin.


End file.
